packaging as content

May 16, 2011

Gumball Cube Pack

Seeing projects like Sophie Valentine’s “Capitalism vs. Socialism” and Regina Rebele’s 2008 “Type-Cube” made me wonder if there was a practicable way that this type of “magic folding cube” could be designed as a box to actually contain something.

Ideally, I would have liked it best if the whole thing—all 8 boxes with tucks & glue flaps—could have been folded from a single die-cut shape. That doesn’t appear to be possible, although it was easy enough to get it down to just 4 pieces which must then be hinged together.

But what sort of product should such a package contain? Gumballs, I decided. Stupid, I guess, to envision such an elaborate package for such an inexpensive product, but demographically appropriate as a candy pack for kids. Like something that Topps might have considered doing in the 1970s. And as our video clearly shows, these gumballs really needed to be contained.

Anyway, this is just Gumball Cube-Pack Mach 1. There are some further structural improvements I have in mind to try next. (If you’re listening, Topps, please give us call. We’d love to hook you up.)

(Some still photos, after the fold…)

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April 21, 2011

Cereal Cups: Then & Now

Shredded Wheat cereal cups. Two kinds…

Then:
Henry D. Perky, the inventor of Shredded Wheat, also designed an edible “cereal cup.” His 1895 patent is vague about what it was meant to actually contain, but I’m guessing something other-than-cereal.

Now:
Now when we say “cereal cup” we mean plastic cups containing a single serving of cereal. Although these packages are too small to hold Perky’s original, full-size shredded wheat biscuits, they can and do accommodate Mini-Wheats. (See: KFoodService EU Pack, Cereal to Go and I Am Breakfast)

(Another “cereal cup” patent, after the fold…)

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February 24, 2011

Cross-Category Yogurt-Wristwatch Packaging

Nooka & Karim Rashid’s collaborative wristwatch called “Yogurt” (above) comes packaged in a cross-category food-pack. Not the first wristwatch packaged like food. Another brightly-colored silicone watch that we looked at in 2009 was the Too Late wristwatch, which came packaged in a small jar. (on right)

As with many cross-category packages, the conceptual connection between this wristwatch and creamy yogurt is pretty tenuous.

Their press release talks about: the synergies of “democratic design” and “universal language”—but I’m not sure how that leads to the idea of yogurt, the food. (Is it about “culture”?) Anyway, the Yogurt’s color choices are expressed as fruit-flavors à la early iMacs.

(Via: Lovely Package)

Launch video below:

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

December 16, 2010

Packaging & Orthographic Graphic Design

I used to think of orthographic projection strictly as drafting technique: those technical drawings, by which any 3-dimensional object could be described in 3–6 views.

In recent years, however, I’ve noticed it turning up as a packaging scheme (see: Mac G5 box, on right) and it does make a certain sense as a way of clearly indicating what’s in the box.

In packaging, as in mechanical drawing, 3 views are usually sufficient to describe most objects. In Art Lebedev’s Paliha-750 telephone carton, however, he has chosen to feature all six, “You can look at it from all sides, while it’s still inside the box.”

Having the outside of a box so closely correspond with the product it contains, makes the packaging function almost as a proxy. Holding the box, the consumer is, in effect, holding a trompe l’oeil product replica. Each panel serves as a diagram of what’s just below the surface. Almost as if the box was invisible and you were seeing right though it. In situations where an actual die window is not feasible, it’s a pretty neat trick.

Above, Marc Brownlow’s automotive light bulb pack:

Packaging system for a specialty aftermarket automotive company. The package uses orthographic “x-ray” views of the bulbs in lieu of clear “windows” to minimize cost.

Another light bulb packaging project, this one by Oliver Meier, also uses orthographic projection. (via: Packaging of The World)

David Graas’s “Not a Box” package clearly shows an orthographic projection of a hanging light with a round shade, but the joke here is that the cube-shaped box is itself the shade and the light is emitted through the misleading lines of the diagram.

The Heliotropium bottle by CPDS is a similar bait and switch. The box shows orthographic projections of a traditional ornate perfume bottle, but inside the box, the bottle is actually box-shaped. (via: the Dieline)

Internationally it was decided to “hide” a bottle. A bottle is in a bottle. The new hides in the previous. The bottle is a box, the box is a bottle. On each side of the box the bottle’s image, the image of it’s each side is placed. The box is designed in such a way when it opens, the drawn bottle opens too. And inside… inside there is other bottle, the real one.

(Some other examples, we’ve featured before, after the fold…)

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December 10, 2010

Can-Gun

Following the Krylon-spray-paint-can & guns thread, I discovered the existence of a package-related product I hadn’t known about: the original “can-gun.” A ergonomic trigger attachment designed to make spray painting less taxing for the index finger.

Originally invented by Paul Hutchinson & Alan Serginson and assigned to Can-Gun Limited. Licensed to various companies, including Krylon. Generally comes packaged on a hook-rack card. Also comes in black.

(See 1st page of patent, after the fold…)

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November 5, 2010

Robert Loughlin’s Brutish Re-Branding

Some package-related artworks by Robert Loughlin. Prolific and single-minded, Loughlin has been painting “the brute” —(his signature squared-jawed smoking man)— on innumerable objects and surfaces since the early 1980s.¹ That some of these objects would be packages, only stands to reason. In tagging them with his own de facto logo, Loughlin² has, in effect re-branded them:

The vintage Mobil Oil can, the Brillo Box³, the perfume bottle picture—(I’m guessing that’s a magazine ad, rather than an actual bottle?)— Kodak Carousel Slide Tray boxes, a record label, a Sears Blanket insert card…

In recent years, Loughlin’s cartoonish, hyper-masculine, smoking “brute” has been featured in The New York Times, Apartment Therapy, Design Boom, etc. While most cite partner, Gary Carlson and his muse and inspiration for “the brute” motif, another important influence may be Leo Burnett’s “Marlboro Man” as the magazine clipping below (from Loughlin’s photo web site) seems to suggest.

Filters at the time were described by Leo Burnett as “sissy”. Real men didn’t smoke filter tipped cigarettes. … Marlboro sold masculinity in 1954 by being the first brand to use “real men” versus the prior models. And what men! They showed football players, cowboys, airplane pilots, and sailors. These were tough, real men… The ads were not just masculine, but were single-mindedly masculine They portrayed manly, rugged men doing manly, rugged jobs.

From Tobacco Documents Online: page 1 of “The Marlboro Success Story,”
a 1985 marketing report made available online as a result of the Master Settlement Agreement

(What is the deal with the guns and the Marlboro pack above? Are the guns little? Or is it an oversized cigarette pack? I don’t know.) The machine gun on the left, is a vintage Tru-matic brand toy machine gun, painted and signed by the artist.

There is also Luke Joerger's film Pickers and Grinners which documents Loughlin’s prowess as a preeminent NY antique picker…

(See a clip of this movie—that features celebrity gossip & packaging—after the fold…)

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October 11, 2010

The Dual-Opening, 2-Way, Reversible Package

A couple of these have appeared here before, but it’s interesting to see all four together…

1: Dominic Wilcox’s Two Way Toothpaste tube

2: Sherwood Forlee’s Easy PB&J Jar

3: Kai-yu Lei’s Dual-Open Bottle

4: Ampro Design’s “Design Business Bottle” (via: the Dieline)

Maybe these 4 designers should team up and start a new company or a brand or something?

(See also: Reversible Jar and Mustard Jar Fight Scene)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

September 23, 2010

The Incomplete Package: Part of a Larger Whole

We’ve already featured a few of Robert Brownjohn’s ground-breaking graphic design ideas.

Here’s another one: the package is just a small part of a larger whole—(i.e.: the display.)

By itself, the package and its message may seem truncated and incomplete, but lined up in a row or stacked one on top of the other, a bigger picture emerges.

During his time as partner at Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar Associates, Brownjohn is credited with designing the 1959 proposed packaging for “Wash Up!” moist towelettes, above.

Among the designs in BCG’s portfolio was a package for 'Wash-up' cubes… with a quirky typographic wrapping. Individually they are hard to read, but stacked one of top of another, the message is clear.

Emily King
Robert Brownjohn: Sex and Typography: 1925-1970 Life and Work

For rectangular boxes, applying this technique is often a simple matter of letting the type—(or photo, or graphics, etc.)—wrap around a corner. Seen by itself, at a 3/4 angle, everything is visible and perfectly legible. Judiciously stacked together, each box can be made to complete the cropped panel of its adjoining neighbor.

These “You Complete Me” packs are not really incomplete, but one at a time, in isolation, they may be hard to fully comphehend.

Top row: 1973-74 Poloroid packaging by Paul Giambarba; 2nd row, left: the Andy Warhol-style bottle illustrations by Design Laboratory at Central Saint Martin’s School of Art & Design join at the corners when displayed in a group (via: The Dieline); oon right: Maikiibox packaging for USB pendrives (via: Packaging of the World); 3rd row, left: on right: Guzman Gastronomia boxes by Marnich & Associates with super-graphic, wrap-around typography (via: Lovely Package); on right: Minute Maid cartons by Duffy & Partners and CMA Brand Presence; 4th row, left: Colin Dunn’s vitamin packaging; on right: packaging for Mesoestetic’s line of men’s skin products by Espulga + Associates—these boxes have numerals that wrap around a corner, although their photos here are slightly misleading (upper photo shows two “1” boxes & two “2” boxes in a row, while lower photo shows single “1” & “2” boxes, shot at an angle); bottom row: Comtech light bulb packaging by ONY (via: Lovely Package)

Surprisingly, a similar idea is sometimes attempted with cylindrical bottles and cans…

(Cylindrical completion, after the fold…)

(more…)

September 13, 2010

Tin Can Lighting

Suddenly realized that we had never done a “round up” on tin can lighting…

Willem Heeffer’s “Campbell’s Soup Can Light” for Fuse Finds—(via: Unconsumption)—was preceded by Christoph Matthias and Hagen Sczech’s 2007 “Canned Light” for Ingo Maurer—proving once again that there is probably precedent for any Campbell’s Soup, pop-art paraphernalia that can be thought of. (See also: Campbell’s Spray Paint Cans)

Heeffer also did a “Heinz Beanz” of his hanging light (above) and both of the Fuse Finds lights feature a “recycled tuna can ceiling rose.”

“Recessed lights” are sometimes called "can lights" or “canned lighting" (or canister lights). I haven't seen any upcycled-tin-can recessed lights, however. Why not? Probably because the main idea of recessed lighting is for the fixture to be self-effacing. Whereas, with this type of tin-can lighting, the whole point of the excercise is for the recycled tin cans to be visible and identifable.

We have touched once before on hanging tin can lights in our post about Steve Roden’s audio-visual intallation work.

Roden’s 2005 “transmission” installation at the “In Resonance” show at the Seattle Center

The idea of using tin cans as light fixtures has been in the air for a while now…

There was the 2009 “Tin Can Night Light” designed by Adi Zaffran and David Keller.

The idea has also been expressed in the form of advertising premiums and promotional restaurant lighting. (OK: some of this is aluminum can lighting.)

Photo on left: via BingoBox’s Etsy shop; photo on right via: OutdoorsWebShots

(These lamps are also reminiscent of Helmut Smits’s 2006 “Coca-Cola Light”)

A battery powered tin can light—a juakali lamp—is reportedly useful during Nairobi blackouts. (via Afrigadget.com)

And since wiring a lamp is not exactly rocket science, there are innumerable DIY examples to be found…

Upper left: a tin-can Sputnik light via: ReadyMadeBlogs; upper right: a coffee can light with a switch via DesignBoom; lower left: a goose-neck tin can reading light via Instructables; lower right: Peter van Zoetendaal’s “Tiny Tim”—another Campbell’s Soup can light; center photo: “tin can pendant lights” from Craft Hacker

(3 more, after the fold…)

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August 27, 2010

Dorothy Torivio’s Avant-Garde Seed Jars

top: Black-on-white eyedazzler seed jar, c. 2000 (Photo via: Vassar.edu); lower photo from eBay

Another type of helical container: Dorothy Torivio’s “eye dazzler” seed jars.

Dorothy’s idea for this design came from a pottery shard she found on the Acoma reservation. Originally, she says, it was a series of simple squares, half white, half black, so she called this idea the “Day and Night” pattern. In this interpretation, the square has become a rectangle, actually a parallelogram, and executed in one of her famous spirals. Her trademark is executing the same number of geometric shapes, regardless of the variance in circumference.

Canyon Art

Photo on right via: Tribal Expressions

Although “eye dazzler” was originally used as a derogatory term by 19th Century collectors of Navajo rugs—(who preferred the earlier, subtler colors to the bright colors that later became available due to railroads)—Torivio’s work (like early “Op Art”) is mostly black and white. Dazzling in pattern, but ascetic and restrained in color. (See also: The Bridget Riley Look)

It is impossible to analyze the mathematical precision of these designs, which she works out in her mind and puts directly on the pot. She looks at a pot, visually divides it in half, then in quarters, then eighths, sixteenths, and more, and keeps dividing until there is no room on the surface. After the mental gymnastics, she begins to paint the pot…

…One day Dorothy was having an exhibition of her pottery in his gallery, at which she was being honored. A man approached her saying that he was a mathematics professor, and he had been trying for a long time to figure out on his computer how she did the designs until he finally arrived at the solution. Whereupon Dorothy laughed, pointed her finger to her brow, and said, “My brain is my computer.”

–Susan Peterson, Women Artists of the American West

(More Torivio seed jars, after the fold…)

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August 25, 2010

Helical Labels

Top: “Triumph Brewery” labels by Abby Brewster (via: The Dieline); on right: 12 inches labeling by War Design (via: The Dieline); lower photo: Directors Cut Wine—concept by Marc Schwarzberg, graphics by Sfaustina (via: The Dieline)

Wrapping a label around a cylindrical object (bottle—jar—can) there are pretty much two ways you can go. You can either go straight around the middle like a belt… or you can wind it around at an angle, forming a helix.

Labels often come printed on a roll to begin with, so one au courant concept is to wind a few inches of labeling around, letting the redundant graphics provide the same information from any vantage point.

Barabasol photo from Roadside Picture’s Flickr Photostream; Adnams Beer (via: Lovely Package)

Barbasol’s stripes are clearly a reference the classic barber’s pole, but there are plenty of other packages with helical motifs that are simply abstract graphics, although usually with a jaunty, uplifting angle. Note how, in all but two of today’s examples, the direction is upwards, from left to right—(as if it would be a downer for it to go the other way.)

The Adnams Beer label, while “uplifting” is actually not a helix at all, as it reverses course and loops back down in the back. The front view strongly suggests a helix—but it is actually worn more like a beauty contestant’s sash.

On left: Mack Cider by Tank (via: The Dieline); on right: Found Juice

Even in labels that do not actually extend all the way around, the helix is still implied. The label on the two cider bottles (above left) surely end abruptly in the back, but their upper labels at the neck pretend to be continuation of the same winding strip.

The found labels, on the the other hand, really do continue on all sides. (According Found Organic’s co-founder, Mark de Luca: “Found has nothing to hide, there is no ‘back or front’ so from any angle the logo and all info can be seen.”)

(The helical story continues unwinding, after the fold…)

(more…)

August 24, 2010

Milk Carton Scissors Sharpener

A milk-carton-shaped “scissors sharpener” from Sealtest. (Available from Ruby Lane for $7 + $2 shipping.)

I’ve seen milk-bottle-shaped pencil sharpeners, but scissors sharpeners were new to me. (See also: Die-Cut, Package-Shaped Recipe Booklets)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

July 30, 2010

Bottleformball

“Bottleformball” a lamp by Heath Nash—multicolour bottleform sections on hand-made wire structure

Another South-African designer of recycled-bottle-lights: Heath Nash. A lot of the lamps in his “Other People’s Rubbish” series use multi-colored bottles, cut up into flower shapes, but I especially like this one, where the packaging parts are still identifiable as handles and spouts, etc.

“Over time… by dealing with so many bottles for so long, I started to see them differently. I started to see parts of them as objects in their own right. Initially I had understood them as purely colour, translucency and size. I was essentially ignoring their most obvious characteristic—their shape.”

–Heath Nash

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

July 28, 2010

Bread Loaf Lunch Box

From Gasoline Alley Antiques: a lunch box that looks like a loaf of sliced bread. (Available on their website for $400)

Conceptually similar to Robert Brownjohn’s cigarette package design that we discussed earlier this month.

Or it would be if this were a bread package. The idea being: the outside of the package serves as a precise diagram of the contents, almost as if the package were transparent. Except that—(just as in the food photography for some unphotogenic frozen entrée)—there’s an opportunity to show a more idealized version of the contents than would be seen through an ordinary transparent package.

And because trompe l’oeil packaging is so fun, the consumer won’t mind being fooled.

(Bread Loaf Lunch Box also comes with a package-related thermos, after the fold…)

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July 14, 2010

Letterhead as Conceptual Art

Above is the business stationery that Robert Brownjohn designed in 1967 for photographer, Michael Cooper. Another example of conceptual art’s influence on graphic design.

Rather than designing stationery with a logo and the usual typographic arrangement of name & address, Brownjohn labels each part of Cooper’s stationery system—letterhead, business card & label—with a conceptual-art-style declarative statement, which happens to include Cooper’s name & address. Calling attention not so much to Cooper’s business activities, but rather to Brownjohn’s role in producing Cooper’s stationery.

On left: young Robert Brownjohn; on right: young Michael Cooper

What are we to make of this?

This simplicity of form is matched with clarity of expression. There can be few more straightforward statements than ”Robert Brownjohn designed this letterhead for Michael Cooper.” But, of course, the design’s appearance and tone of restraint prove misleading. They transpire to be a means of casting Brownjohn’s outrageous subversion of the function of the letterhead into even greater relief. It takes quite a nerve to convert a piece of typography intended as an advertisement for someone else into a promotion for yourself. Every communication Michael Cooper made on this paper could not help but be at least as much about Brownjohn as it was about its subject.

Bob Gill has suggested that the letterhead was designed in reaction to being cajoled into doing the job as a favour: “This is the greatest free job ever done by a designer. What does he want to say? I did this for nothing, that’s what.” Meanwhile, Gill’s then wife Bobby had a somewhat different interpretation: “Michael Cooper was somebody who used to hang around, but he didn’t have any personality. Bj thought and thought of something to do for his letterhead, but the only thing this guy had done that was in any way interesting was to ask him to design it.” The truth is probably somewhere between the two. The desire to wreak revenge on exploitative “friends” will resonate with most graphic designers, but accounts of Cooper do hint at a paper-thin personality…
…It could be the case that his letterhead for Cooper was intended as a subtle swipe at the whole King’s Road scene. Although Brownjohn obviously enjoyed his notoriety, his increasingly exaggerated manners and extravagant outfits imply that he had a perpetual sense of the absurd.

Dick Fontaine has suggested that Brownjohn had a 1950s sensibility very different from that of the “velvet-suited” brigade of Cooper and Fraser. It was a case of conceptual art and jazz versus hippy philosophy and psychedelia.

Robert Brownjohn sex and typography: 1925-1970, Life and Work
By Emily King and Eliza Brownjohn

If, as Bob Gill and his wife suggest, Brownjohn resented the project or didn’t respect Cooper, then why even do it? Maybe the sheer audacity of the idea was, for Brownstreet, kind of irresistible.

“In his short but intense working life, Brownjohn helped to redefine
graphic design, to move it from a formal to a conceptual art.”

Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, 1995

Or maybe this was just a combative, but friendly rivalry among creatives? (You know, like between the Beatles and the Stones?) Despite the Bobby Gill’s harsh appraisal of Cooper’s “paper thin” personality, his life and accomplishments actually match Brownjohn’s in number of surprising ways… (which we’ll take a look at tomorrow.)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

June 21, 2010

The KFC ปลาปี๊ด Tongue-Tab Snack Box

Top left photo: from Krannies’ Blog; on right, from LongChimDoo.com: open box showing tongue-tab flap

About the bilingual headline above: “ปลาปี๊ด” (or “pla peedz”) is
KFC’s Thai name for a spicy-lime, fried-fish snack that was apparently
available in 2009, only in Thailand. Part of KFC’s “Snack menu!”, pla peedz was served in this “tongue tab”
carton.

Similar to the wide open, mouth-shaped food packaging windows
we surveyed in April, this box has die-cut mouths on all all 4 sides,
but the main attraction is the tongue-shaped tab/flap, sticking out of
the die cut mouth on front.

(More ปลาปี๊ด photos and a TV commercial, after the fold…)

(more…)

June 9, 2010

Coca-Cola Light(s)

On left: Helmut Smits’s “Coca-Cola Light” 2006 (tin packaging, tin lids, wire end, light socket, electrics, lamp shade) Photo by Rick Messemaker; on right the “limited edition” Coke Light bottle by Rosella Jardini for Moschino

After mentioning that Helmut Smits would probably not be invited to do a “limited edition” designer bottle, I noticed that he had already kind of done that. To the seemingly endless supply of “limited edition” designer Coke Light bottles, he has added “Coca-Cola Light”—a soda can, made into a lamp. (above, left)

Determined to limit myself to just one example of the “limited edition” designer series, I’ve chosen this overflowing design (on right) by Rosella Jardini for Moschino. One of eight Italian female fashion designers who designed Coke Light bootles to be auctioned at the “Tribute to Fashion Show” in Milian. (Proceeds were to benefit the victims of the earthquake in Abruzzo.)

In photography a “light spill” is something that photographers usually aim to avoid. In packaging, a depiction of a product—even a “light” product—spilling down the sides of a package is an interesting mixed blessing. Food may ooze and drip in a sensuous manner, but how appealing is a sticky package? (See: Parsing Drips & Droplets)

Regarding the double meaning of “light” — Coca-Cola is not unaware of this pun. Check out their 2010 Winter Olympics promotional bottles…

(Another video, after the fold…)

(more…)

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